Dino Eggs…And What's Inside

by Sara F. Schacter

What could be rarer than discovering the egg of a real dinosaur? How about finding the baby dinosaur still inside? In a huge dinosaur nesting ground in Argentina, scientists recently found the fossil remains of six unhatched baby dinosaurs. About a foot long and snuggled up inside eggs the size of grapefruit, these dinosaur embryos have helped solve the mystery of which dinosaurs laid the miles and miles of eggs buried in the dirt and rock.

The tiny embryos were titanosaurs—a type of sauropod, the long-necked, plant-eating dinosaurs that were among the largest land animals ever. Scientists were amazed that their delicate skulls and fragile skin had survived long enough to become fossilized. Some embryos still had tiny, sharp teeth in their mouths.

By studying the embryos' skulls, scientists are learning just how dramatically the structure of the titanosaurs' faces changed as they grew. The embryos' nostrils are at the tips of their snouts, but by the time titanosaurs were full grown, their skulls changed so that their nostrils were almost between their eyes.

In yet another amazing discovery, scientists in England have found fossilized dino vomit! Coughed up 160 million years ago by a large marine reptile called ichthyosaur, the vomit contains the undigested shells of squidlike shellfish—no doubt ichthyosaur's favorite snack. “We believe that this is the first time the existence of fossil vomit on a grand scale has been proven,” said one excited scientist.

Vocabulary

Activity

What kinds of things did scientists learn about the way titanosaurs reproduce?[anno: The scientists learned that titanosaurs laid a lot of eggs over a wide area. They had a nesting ground.]

Where was the dinosaur vomit found?[anno: It was found in England.]

What kind of a dinosaur made the vomit?[anno: an ichthyosaur]

How has the habitat of the ichthyosaur changed, from the time it lived until today? How do you know this change has happened?[anno: When the ichthyosaur lived, its habitat was an ocean. The ichthyosaur was a marine dinosaur, so the area that is now England must have been under water.]